Philip Maddocks: Americans hopeful big banks will soon take the country back

Monday

Dec 27, 2010 at 12:01 AMDec 27, 2010 at 2:42 PM

Two years after the onset of the financial crisis, with the stock market recovering and Wall Street’s moneyed elite breathing easier again, ordinary Americans say they can hardly wait for the trading firms to take over the supervision of the country so average citizens can begin sharing in the spoils.

Philip Maddocks

Buoyed by reports that, even in difficult economic times, bonuses across all financial services companies are expected to increase 5 percent this year — employees in some businesses will get increases of 15 percent — Americans are expecting they, too, will soon be in line for windfalls of their own of $600,000 or more once the large and profitable investment banks seize control of the nation from the indebted U.S. government.

Two years after the onset of the financial crisis, with the stock market recovering and Wall Street’s moneyed elite breathing easier again, ordinary Americans say they can hardly wait for the trading firms to take over the supervision of the country so average citizens can begin sharing in the spoils.

“It has been a long time since we have had this type of good news,” said Stan Michaels, an out-of-work roofer who was celebrating his expected good fortune with dinner out at the Porter House restaurant across from Central Park in New York.

Mr. Michaels, while motioning a waiter to refill the champagne flutes in front of him, his two sons and Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd C. Blankfein, who was seated two tables over, said, “A lot of us are happy to see that the bonus culture has not only survived the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, but is thriving more than ever. That has to be good news for ordinary Americans everywhere.”

With hopes that a takeover of the country’s financial management by Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs and banks like Citigroup could happen any day now, many Americans are expecting their pay to rise substantially in 2011.

Lori Kantorski, a struggling single mother of four from Chicago, said she is anticipating her base salary to increase fifty fold in the coming year, to about $500,000.

“Given the kind of year I have had and what’s going on at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, I don’t think that is out of line,” she said.

After scaling back family excesses as a brutal recession gripped the country, regular Americans, encouraged by the turnaround in the financial sector, are ready to cut loose again.

Drawn from a broad swath of back-office administrative assistants and middle-level managers and laborers, the new class of the Expectedly Entitled, as they have come to be called, say they are facing a once-unthinkable prospect: an annual six-figure bonus.

Alexander Sullivan, who works in customer service at a U-Haul in Phoenix, said he is planning to use his sure-to-come financial windfall to throw a memorable birthday party for his son Sam.

Mr. Sullivan said he is expecting more than 1,000 people to pack into a 6,000-square-foot space at the Good Units nightclub in Manhattan to celebrate his son’s seventh birthday, a substantially larger crowd than in the last several birthday parties for his son.

He said the open bar planned for the occasion is being sponsored by Russian Standard vodka, and Mr. Sullivan said hip-hop star Lil’ Kim will perform at the function while dressed in a black cat costume.

“I would have been afraid to do this two years ago, and that probably goes for Lil’ Kim, too — but not now,” Mr. Sullivan said, with the swagger that has gripped the country thanks to the resurgence of Wall Street.

When it comes to personal indulgences, there are other signs that the wallets of ordinary Americans are beginning to open up because of a newfound confidence that everyday workers are ready to thrive again now that the fortunes of the economy are tied once more to the ebb and flow of the financial markets.

New York dermatologic surgeon Dr. Nancy M. Agoravista says her business is booming as never before with a cliental list that is filled with struggling Americans “ready to put the best face” on the newfound financial success they are certain is coming their way.

Christie’s auction house said average earners who fell out of the bidding market during the credit crisis are “pouring” back in to “put the ordinary back into the extraordinary.”

Real estate agents say Main Street laborers have already begun lining up rentals in the Hamptons for next summer.

“There is a passion now in this market that I haven’t seen in a while,” said Angel InvesterHooven of Prudential Prudent and Wild.

Though most Americans seem to be looking at spending their anticipated millions on extravagant indulgences “to keep the economic engine humming,” a few remain focused on the less pretentious goal of home ownership.

“We’ve all heard the stories of someone showing up in Greenwich to buy a $10 million house and paying cash on the spot,” said Casey Simmons, who manages a deli at a Whole Foods in Washington, D.C. “And if the top executives at the biggest banks continue to play their cards right and set aside hundreds of billions of dollars for bonuses, then I expect that in a few years I will be one of those someones. Why not? That’s the American dream, right?”

Philip Maddocks can be reached at pmaddock@cnc.com

GateHouse News Service

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